Parham Karimi

An Iranian-Canadian architect and researcher. He holds a diploma in Architecture Technology from the TAFE Institute at the University of New South Wales in Australia and a Bachelor of Environmental Design, Minoring in Sustainability in Design, from OCAD University in Toronto, Canada. Parham received his MArch degree at John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture at the University of Toronto. His written works and visual artworks have been published in the journal Inquiries (Boston, US), Hamshahri Memari, Journal of Architecture and Urbanism (Tehran, Iran), and Globe & Mail Magazine (Toronto, Canada). Parham is interested in bringing difficult issues that are central to the practice of architecture to larger audiences through exhibitions, design, research project and photography. In 2013, he received the Canadian Sony World Photography Award, participated in assembling the tourism master plan of Guelmim region (Morocco) with professor Aziza Chaouni, and was part of a team from OCAD University in Toronto participating in the research project: Active Design, Affordable Designs for Affordable Housing, published by the Center for Active Design in New York. In 2014, Parham was awarded John Yamada memorial fellowship at the University of Toronto, and his thesis project proposal was awarded the Peter Prangnell scholarship from the Department of Architecture at University of Toronto. Examining a series of case studies from Iran and Morocco, this thesis proposes a model for women's multi-purpose handicraft cooperative buildings in less developed areas within the Islamic world. Enriched with ethnographic research, his thesis also provides a lens through which to study sustainable tourism in the MENA region.

Abadan is located in the southernmost part of Iran, facing a narrow body of water (Arvand Rud in Farsi or Shatt al-Arab in Arabic), annexed from the Persian Gulf. The excavation of oil in this city brought in workers and specialist from all regions of Iran as well as countries as varied as the Great Britain to India and the United States. With the varied and global population, a diverse and global material culture and architecture were shaped in this city. Also, due to the massive investments by the Anglo-Iranian oil company (in Abadan), a new lifestyle was introduced. For instance, high-ranked Western specialists were given better, gated neighborhoods while the local unskilled workers from Iran lived in shantytowns. Meanwhile, those from India and Bangladesh lived in accommodations that were far better than those of the locals and poorer than those of their Western counterparts. In this sense, a new lifestyle and “new notions of class-based communities based on European models were introduced.”1Abadan has always been important regarding its oil reservoirs and strategic location, but rarely regarding its architecture. In this article, while the authors are addressing the work of other scholars on the topic, they also introduce a lesser-known aspect of architecture in Abadan and investigate the question of style in a pseudo-colonial context, asking: How does style defend and define the identity of a given group? How does style become a political indicator? Is style charged with ideological and political meanings? Moreover, finally, Can architectural style be partially responsible for highlighting specific issues about race and racial differences?

1) Karimi, Pamela. 2013.Domesticity and consumer Culture in Iran: Interior Revolutions of the Modern Era. New York: Routledge.